As the rest of the Maple Leafs embraced their new identity of scrappy, bounce-back — dare we say playoff-worthy team — Phil Kessel has had a touch of amnesia.

Towing the company line for better team defence under coach Randy Carlyle and finding new paths with left winger James van Riemsdyk, Kessel found himself in more playmaking and support opportunities. When he assisted on van Riemsdyk’s opening goal Monday night against the visiting Rangers, it put him plus-16 in assist-to-goals ratio.

But with New York threatening to rob the Leafs of a playoff insurance deposit, the old Kessel who had 99 goals and 102 assists before 2013, came to life. He twice answered Rangers goals as the game began slipping away, including the 4-3 winner just 39 seconds after Derek Stepan and Rick Nash erased a two-goal lead.

“About time,” Kessel kidded with the media after last scoring March 16 and not getting two in a home game since 14 months ago.

The night was huge for Kessel, but moreso for his team, who’ve won five of the past six and two straight without injured power forward Joffrey Lupul. An eight-point gap now separates the Leafs from an eighth straght playoff failure.

Van Riemsdyk and coach Randy Carlyle used Monday’s game to fire back at critics of Kessel’s perceived one-way play.

“You don’t score as many goals as he has without being gritty or whatever you want to call it,” van Riemsdyk said. “He has that in him. Maybe it’s not as apparent to the eye that isn’t trained as well, but I think you have to be gritty, whether it’s beating guys to the puck with your speed or getting positioning on a guy, getting inside him.”

“He’s a point-a-game guy and we’re talking about him not providing offence?,” Carlyle said. “I don’t get it. He’s getting his chances (under the new blue and white blueprint).

“We’ve always said he can create offence by himself. We’re asking more of a cycle game from him. Those are things that he’s adjusted to, That’s a feather in his cap, because you can’t play one-dimensional hockey in the NHL. You can (only) get by for a while.”

Kessel helped build the 3-1 lead with a last-minute, second-period, power-play goal, but the margin was on the rocks after the second of two beautiful Rick Nash rush goals and one by Stepan at the end of a Toronto man advantage. Kessel’s line then put in its blitzkrieg shift and he scored from van Riemsdyk and centre Tyler Bozak. Such quick rallies haven’t been seen consistently in the club’s playoff drought.

“We’re resilient,” said goalie James Reimer, who made 31 saves in starting for the ninth time in 10 games. “We have faith in each other and if we all play our roles, good things will happen.”

The fifth-seeded Leafs aren’t going to talk about a secure playoff spot yet, considering the herky-jerky nature of ther recent games, but Monday’s strong ending will forgive some defensive sins.

“The last five or six minutes were probably as well as we’ve defended and played in the situation of a one-goal lead,” Carlyle praised. “We did a lot of things right, moved the puck up the side walls and didn’t turn it over. There were a few bounces we’d like to have back, but we won the game, played hard and had a contribution from everybody.”

The streaky nature of Kessel and van Riemsdyk this year will be over-looked if the Leafs go into the playoffs with them on a roll. The first period’s only goal was van Riemsdyk’s second in three games after his prolonged slump. He got a second whack at a John-Michael Liles rebound that Henrik Lundqvist couldn’t corral. The oddity is that van Riemsdyk seems to get hot when Lupul is hurt, with most of his goals coming while Lupul was recovering from a broken arm and now two more with him resting a head injury. Toronto moved up 2-0 when Nazem Kadri spotted new 6-foot-5 defenceman Ryan O’Byrne jumping into the play.

Last year’s Vezina winner, Lundqvist has a bit of a mental block where the Leafs are concerned. Monday night dropped his career mark against them to 11-7-4 and represented the first time in the past 11 games overall he’d surrendered more than two goals in a game.

He’ll have a chance to amend that Wednesday in the Manhattan rematch, but time is running out for the fringe teams to catch Toronto.

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Leafs hold off Rangers

In case you thought Phil Kessel had forgotten how to score during his assist-a-palooza, his amnesia has passed.

Kessel supplied two goals, his first multi-goal effort at home this year, to rescue a 4-3 win over the Rangers on a Monday night that almost got away. A 3-1 lead which Kessel helped to build with a last-minute second-period power-play goal, was on the rocks after the second of two beautiful Rick Nash goals and one by Derek Stepan at the end of a Toronto advantage.

But it took just 39 seconds for Kessel’s line, overlooked in the recent Joffrey Lupul-Nazem Kadri success, to retain the lead with a blitzkrieg shift and help from James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak. Van Riemsdyk was a force on his own with a goal and assist, as the Leafs scramble to replace the injured Lupul’s offence.

It added up to the Leafs’ fifth win in six games and an eight-point lead on the non-playoff field in the Eastern Conference.